Waking Up
by Cynthia Arrow
Summary: A postep for the season 6 finale, and something of a sequel to the story 'Respect' see note. Some drama and shippery goodness for J&D fans. It's serious but it's also quite fluffy. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: I'm making no profit from my use of the characters Aaron Sorkin birthed and so foolishly handed over to John "This Show Needs More Trauma" Wells.

Rating: T, for mild language and some sexual innuendo.

Long Note (bear with me): This is a present day story but it hearkens back to episode 2.14 "The War at Home," which aired way back in February of 2001. During this episode, Donna tries repeatedly to get Josh to go out with pollster Joey Lucas. While discussing the difference between poll numbers and people's actual attitudes, Joey tells Josh: "If you polled a hundred Donnas and asked them if they think we should go out, you'd get a high positive response. But, the poll wouldn't tell you it's because she likes you. And she's knows it's beginning to show and she needs to cover herself with misdirection." This was a typical teaser for us J/D shippers, and I'm returning to it, in spirit at least.

And this story refers to events from a post-ep I wrote for season six's finale called "Respect," published May-ish. You could probably understand this just fine without reading it (just like you can read that story and pretend this one never came along if you hate shippery stuff), because the first story really was meant to stand alone. Now, if you're somehow not put off by this note, here's the story.

Waking Up

Josh woke up with a headache. He also woke up in a room that was decidedly not his own, although it was similar. Right hotel, wrong set of black high heeled shoes sitting under the desk chair, perfectly aligned and only inches from touching the black slip that was hung over the back of the chair. On top of it, he recognized his tie. However, his dress shirt and pants were nowhere to be found. Neither was his female companion, who could only be Donna—not that he looked very hard for confirmation, since the world was spinning—because the room smelled like Donna's shampoo.

He closed his eyes and tried to think as he cursed the light seeping through his eyelids. Last night was the greatest night of his political life. Despite the dubious influence he had on things, he'd gotten Congressman Santos the nomination. Then he'd escaped to the roof for a serious discussion with Donna.

"Gin," he said, and his voice sounded like he hadn't used it in a month. "How much is the question."

Then he heard footsteps come out of the bathroom. "No, the question is why are you sleeping in my bed in your underwear?" Donna didn't sound the least bit disturbed, only slightly smug and teasing. Only those well-versed in her cheerful morning attitude could detect a faint note of exhaustion in her tone and mannerisms. But she was efficient enough to hide it rather well.

"Oh, God."

"Relax. Nothing happened. I'm actually surprised you stayed awake until I got you here."

"Why am I here?"

"Because I wanted you to be."

She didn't add anything, and she went back to getting ready. The clock on the bedside table said 8:32, and he knew there was somewhere he should be. Someone should have paged him. Someone should have called him. Someone should have done something so that he didn't wake up with a pounding head to find Donna dressed and fixing her hair under fluorescent lights. He looked and saw that the phone was on the hook, but upon closer examination, the ringer was turned off. His own cell phone had been set to silent.

"Donna, where's my pager?"

"On the table. It's turned off like the phones."

"Why?"

"Vacation."

"What?"

"I called the congressman and told him you were sick. He's going to be wrangling the press all morning, and you have a PR guy for that, right?"

"You told Congressman Santos that I'm sick." It was a question, but it sounded like a statement to him, an angry, half-incredulous statement.

"You are."

"No. I'm irresponsibly hung over and you're starting to piss me off."

"Really? That's not what you said last night."

"What?" He suddenly had a sinking feeling, and the fact that she came out of the bathroom and started mimicking his mannerisms didn't help.

"'Donna, baby, I know you understand me. I'm so tired of it all. I'm so tired. I want to be a good campaign manager, but I'm tired, baby.' If I had a nickel for every 'tired' or 'baby,' I could leave the exciting world of politics and plant myself in Key West between hurricanes."

"You can't just quit my job for me."

"I didn't quit your job. I told a white lie. I think he knew it, but he's learned, apparently from you, that it's not smart to say 'no' to me."

"He needs me."

"No, he doesn't. Seriously. He didn't seem the slightest bit upset."

"They'll wonder where I am."

"They'll assume you're doing something more important."

"Like…?"

"Sleeping."

"I slept last night."

"No. You whined and then passed out for three and a half hours."

"I'm not going to stay in your hotel room and sleep on the day after my candidate was declared the Democratic nominee for President of the United States."

"Wow. You're hung over and you still managed to pull out the pompous phrases. That doesn't work on me. This day, whether you like it or not, is not about you anymore. You won. You accomplished your goal. You da man. So celebrate. Sleep like the dead and I'll bring you some lunch. Then we can discuss you going back to your job."

"You can't tell me what to do anymore."

"Oh, no? Then how come you're here? How come you'll crawl back under my covers when I'm gone?"

"I won't."

"You will."

"Donna, why am I here?"

"Because I wanted you to be. Now, get some sleep."

"Where are you going?"

"To help them pack up Russell for President."

With that, she picked up a manila folder and her purse. Sliding into her heels, she clacked out the door, closing it softly behind her. She had absolute confidence that he would do just what she asked.

He contemplated it good and hard. He was angry. He should be, anyway. How dare she? He even said it out loud, but that made his head throb, so he pushed the pillows up against the headboard and sat back. Closing his eyes, he made a mental note of everything he might possibly be needed to do, and he couldn't think of a single thing before a dinner at 5. She was right. Dammit, she always was. Sure, it would be good to be out and about, to put in his appearance and strut before the other politicos who had been snickering behind his back for weeks. But it wasn't necessary, and he found that somehow he didn't have the heart for it. Despite Donna's pep talk the night before, he still felt like the Santos victory meant nothing to him. What did mean something was the coolness of the sheets when he slid his legs back down to the end of the bed, so he worked his whole body down slowly into a sleeping position again. He was tired, body and soul, in a way he hadn't been when he was just Leo or CJ's deputy, when things didn't rest on his shoulders. Maybe it would be good to sleep.

He was almost out when something in his brain finally worked through the conversation he and Donna had just had. Baby. He'd called her 'baby.' 'Baby' was not a word he had ever called her, at least not to her face. A hundred times a day in the White House, he'd been waiting for her to bring him something or wondering what the hell she was up to, and in his head was an echo of 'Donna, baby, get in here,' or 'Donna, just what has set you on the warpath, baby?' He had a wonderful sense of decorum that kept the words from ever leaving his lips in anyone's hearing. It was just a private thing, thought or mumbled in frustration or curiosity or amazement, nearly always protective, as if she were his Donna to watch over. It didn't seem patronizing to him; he knew it wasn't. It was just the thing he called her in his mind, without really thinking about it other than as a way he saw her that nobody else did. Somehow, he'd been drunk enough to say it out loud to her face. That made him suddenly mortified.

But she wasn't pissed, so maybe he didn't have to be embarrassed. She'd had an annoyed affection for Drunk Josh the few times she'd encountered him, and since she hadn't given him too much hell about it yet, she wasn't likely to. Besides, she'd been the one pouring the night before. He started thinking about what she called him in her head. Jackass? Out loud, he was 'boss' or, sarcastically, 'sir.' Once in a while, it was 'Captain Amazing,' also in sarcasm. But there had to be a word for him that wasn't sarcastic, that was who he was to her…if such private possessiveness existed in her mind. It had to, right? She had brought him back to her room, and why?

Then Josh knew he couldn't sleep. It gave him a strange satisfaction to disobey Donna's orders. He dressed carefully in the clothes he'd worn the night before—or what he could find of them, his dress shirt still AWOL—and examined his face in the mirror. Grimacing, he noticed a baseball cap on the floor beside the bed. It was a Russell hat but he donned it anyway and went out into the hallway in his undershirt and slacks, hoping to remember a surreptitious route to the Regents Room, where the Russell Campaign had set up camp.

She saw him coming, recognizing him the instant he crept into the crowded campaign headquarters. Will Bailey was across the room, and he regarded Josh strangely, heading across the room to him until Donna whisked him through the room and out onto a balcony that overlooked a parking lot before anyone else could recognize him.

She frowned and scolded him: "There's media everywhere. The only thing worse than you playing hooky is you sneaking around looking like a frat boy dodging an algebra exam."

"I didn't feel like sleeping."  
"I see. I should have known it wouldn't be that easy. I've lost all power over you. I should have known that a long time ago."

He could instantly see that this was the not the Donna who had left him only a little while earlier. This was Angry Donna, and though he always foolishly tried to communicate with Angry Donna, it never worked. He just couldn't stop himself; he always had hope that he could figure out what was wrong. "What?" He said.

"I used to think I meant something to you, that you at least appreciated me."

"I do."

"Look, just go back to your room, Josh. Just do whatever you want to do. It's your day." She opened the door without holding it for him.

Josh followed her in as she weaved through the volunteers. "I don't get this, Donna."

"What's not to get? I'm sorry I interfered. I have no right to run your life for you."

"You're the only one who's ever run my life for me that I never resented doing it."

"Great. A lack of resentment. That's nice." She lowered her voice, hissing her next words: "I turn my life inside out for you and it becomes something that doesn't particularly bother you."

"What?"

"Just go. I'm working. I guess you should be too."

Defeated, Josh allowed himself to be pushed into the hallway.

He didn't want to go back to her room. Anyway, he didn't have the key, and the key to his own room had gone missing from his pocket, meaning it was probably locked up in Donna's room too. So he went up to the roof, carefully slipping around clusters of important people and past random members of the press. He hoped to clear his head, even if the sunshine maliciously burned his headache away, even if the fresh air took a while to settle his nausea.

"Donna, baby," he said aloud, "God, how you must hate me."

The anger he felt from her, so unlike the controlled forgiveness she'd proffered the night before, hit him in an odd way, like her leaving. It was almost unimaginable. Some part of him still didn't realize she'd suddenly left him to deal with humorless temps, that she wasn't taking notes and fetching reports for him, that she hadn't been there to leave the White House with him. Every time he saw her, it made him sure that the past few weeks hadn't been real. So he wasn't hurt, only stunned. He'd never believed she would do it—quit or go off on him like she just did—because that wasn't how things were between them.

"Of course, I've been wrong before," he said over the ledge to the crowded streets below.

Why didn't he think she'd leave? He had been aware of the reality of it occasionally, after the initial numbness and during those long nights working when he'd desperately wanted to hear her crack a joke at his expense and lean in close to him with her perfume settling his wired senses. He'd felt abandoned and hollow and he simply tried with all his might to shove it clear out of his mind—like he had the possibility that she might become tired of staying in a job she had grown beyond, a job that she only stayed in for him.

What was it Joey Lucas had said that time? It was about polls and Donna, about how she carefully covered her feelings for him. He guessed that he'd always been aware of Donna's admiration, and it suited him to flirt with her and soak up that attraction. Was that why he was so blind to the fact that she could leave him? Poll a hundred Joshes and they'll all tell you it just won't happen; she won't give up on the possibility of something happening. What the numbers don't tell you is that Josh didn't want her to give up, that he had no real evidence of her future course of action other than his own desire to never have her leave him.

"But why?" he said to himself.

"Excellent question," a voice said behind him. Donna walked over to the ledge and leaned over it beside him, looking not at him but at the city skyline.

"How did you know I was here?"

"I'm psychic, Joshua. I also have the keys to both our rooms."  
"Is that what you call me in your head?"

"What?"

"When you think about me and talk to me without saying anything, do you call me Joshua?"

"Occasionally. Mostly, it's 'Dammit.'"

"Donna."

"I'm serious. 'Dammit, you pig-headed moron.' 'Dammit, you have to be stupid, don't you?' 'Dammit, what is your problem?'"

"When did you start hating me?"

"That's not hate. That's frustration. Or disappointment."

"I'm sorry I let you leave."

"I'm not. I needed to go."

"You don't think I could have made things better?"

"No." She sighed and stepped back from the ledge. "The fact that I wasn't advancing was only half the problem."

"Oh?"

"Having you wave off my resignation hurt, but only because it told me where I stood."

"Donna."

She smiled then, darkly. "No. Don't. I get it, finally. You weren't being callous. You were being blind. There's a very good reason you never thought I'd leave you."

"Well…"

Firmly, she said, "No. This is the part where you figure things out. You know why I took you back to my room last night. You know why I've always been anywhere you were, even this damn miserable campaign. What you have to tell me is why you came with me."  
"I don't know."  
"I realize that, not in the literal sense. You were drunk. Very drunk. So drunk that your mouth starting pouring forth things that I hadn't expected to hear. But you don't have to know what you told me to know what you feel."

"I wouldn't have left you."

She frowned at him, apparently not expecting an answer so quickly. "What?"

He said, "That's it. I would never have left you. I couldn't imagine a West Wing without you in it until you were gone. I didn't think it was possible, because I could never have survived without you."

"But you did."

He shook his head, laughing bitterly. Launching himself from where he was leaned against the railing, he said, "It can be so big that you don't see it."

"What can?"

"You can take it so for granted that you finally don't even notice it anymore. It's just an undercurrent to everything you do. You follow me everywhere, waiting in the background. Why did I leave you in the background for so long? Why did you let me?"

"If you'll remember, I finally did cut my losses and walk away."

"And you believed about as much as I did that it was an ending. In fact, I think it was supposed to be a beginning."

Firmly: "To my own life, Josh."

"I know that. I'm glad you worked for Will. You have no idea how proud I've been of you. But you never went too far. That's how I survived it, I think. You were my Donna again, close enough to touch, except you were more my Donna than I'd ever seen."

She laughed suddenly. In the midst of a very serious declaration, she laughed. "That's your other name in my head."

"What?"

"'My Josh.' You've been my Josh since the day I met you."

"Even before you loved me?" As he let the words fall from his lips, suddenly his heart started pounding. That one word—love—had the power to make things a little too real, as if there were now no backing out of the conversation. It had come about so suddenly that he wasn't sure how they were in so deep, standing on a relatively crowded roof in the hot sunshine at the end of the Democratic Convention, sweating and finally saying things that they assumed would go unspoken.

"I can't remember that far back." She turned then, retreating into herself a little, perhaps only then aware of the depth of their discussion.

"How do you know I was being honest last night?"

"I know you. And I also know that alcohol lets something loose inside you. So does Valium, but after Rosslyn you only talked about your sister. Anyway, I can always tell when you're talking without trying to cover anything up."

Josh steadied himself, asking calmly, "Donna, what did I say?"

She looked back at him long and hard for an interminable period of time. Finally, she said, "Among other things, 'I miss you, baby. I need you, baby. I love you, baby.'"

"Were you ever gonna tell me I said that?"

"No." She shook her head. "You were."

He took the hint, sliding his arms around her. "Donna, baby, I never really missed you because you were never that far away. But I need you and I love you."

She had tears in her eyes. "I know," she said, kissing him. At first it was a hard kiss because it was too intense for them to completely let themselves go. But soon Josh felt her fingers weaving into the hair on the back of his neck, and he opened the kiss, sliding his mouth over hers and relishing the softness of it, the taste of some sweet lip gloss, then the taste of her mouth as he delved into it with his tongue. After she let him kiss her, acquiescing in an obvious way, practically sighing into his arms, she slowly but surely took control from him, finally pulling her mouth away and returning it to kiss him in short bursts, momentarily nipping at his lower lip, planting kisses down his chin and on his jaw line. She gave him one more long, deep kiss on the lips and pulled back to look at him.

He said, "You should have done that last night."

"I was too angry."  
"You didn't seem angry."

She sighed and settled herself on a nearby bench and he followed her. "Why do you think I drank as much as I did. What you should ask yourself is, am I still angry?"

"Nope," he said, sitting down and patting her knee with his hand. "I may be slow, but that was not Angry Donna kissing me just then."

"Dammit, I hate when you're right."

"But just for the record, you have plenty of reason to be angry. And I'm so many different kinds of sorry for the way I've been acting."

"You were just being Josh. And, besides, you said all that last night too."

"So I also apologize when I'm drunk?"

"In between throwing up and passing out on my bed."

"I threw up last night? Wouldn't I at least feel like I had?"

"I made you gargle with Listerine before you laid down."

"The room didn't smell like…"

She snorted, covering her upturned mouth with her hand. "The real reason you slept in my bed last night is because you puked over half of your own room."  
"Oh, God. Seriously?"

"Yeah. But I called the front desk, and they've already taken care of it."  
"Remind me to do something really nice for whatever unfortunate person cleaned that up."

"We will."

"We?"

"Do you deny there's a 'we'?"

"No. I mean, if you want there to be a 'we.'"

"You really are one of the most obtuse people I've ever met."

"It's sort of part of the deal with me. Brilliant with information but a disaster with people."

"I know. Even if I hadn't, you told me all about yourself last night."  
"Oh, God."

"This was before you started throwing up. You said you were an asshole but you didn't mean to be. You also said you seem all calm and collected—something, which, by the way, is patently untrue—but that you have passions just bubbling beneath the surface."

"Did I, uh, describe these passions?"

She leaned over to him, saying in his ear, "Not only did you describe them but you demonstrated some of them."

"Oh, God."

She giggled. "It's nothing I haven't seen or heard or fended off before."

"I'm sorry."

"It's actually quite funny. Did you know that you can tell what kind of lover a man will be by how he holds his liquor."

He groaned. "That does not bode well for me."

"Sure it does. You'll be sloppy and haphazard but intense and enthusiastic."

"I'm not saying you're right, because that makes me sound like a puppy or a small child." Then he looked at the expression on her face more closely. "But you actually seem to like that idea."

"I like you. I don't even mind that your not so subtle drunken innuendo often includes phrases like 'legislative immunity' and 'conservative dogma.'"

"You're kidding?"

"No. Did you know you once threatened to create a senate subcommittee to protect my breasts."

He cringed, especially because she seemed so pleased with herself. "Donna, could you please not tell me anything else I said while I was drunk. And could you forget you heard it."

She just shook her head, "Too late."

"Then can we go back to your room and go to sleep?"  
"Sleep?"

"I'm too tired and sick to do anything but sleep."

"Josh, I have work to do."

"Well, beautiful, so did I until a bossy woman forced me to play hooky. Besides, you work for me now."

"Oh?"

"I've made you the campaign spokesmodel."  
"Josh."

"No, seriously. I know what you can do, and you won't be my assistant or even directly under me."

"Ooh, under you," she said, raising her eyebrows.

"God, I wish I wasn't exhausted and hung over."

"There's no hurry. What's another day after eight years?"

"Eight years? Damn, I'm an idiot."

"Do you mind repeating that into a tape recorder?"

"Not a chance." Without a transition, he returned to the other subject at hand, eager to dwell on something he was capable of doing. "I think we can afford good polling now. I wanna have you get in contact with Joey Lucas. If she'll get on board, you can be the campaign liaison to her office."

"Will the Congressman be okay with having your, uh…"

"Girlfriend."

She smiled. "Yeah. Will he care that his liaison to the polls is having liaisons with his campaign manager?"

"Yes, but in a good way. He keeps telling me I need a good woman, preferably one who understands politics well enough to put up with me."

"He's very smart."

"Yes, he is—smart enough to know I will be much more use to him if I'm happy."

"You, Josh Lyman, happy?"

"Yes, baby. That's the plan."

As they were walking back down the stairs, they were suddenly aware of the fact that the campaign manager for the Democratic Nominee, a man with the potential to be Chief of Staff to the future President, was wearing half of his slept-in clothes and looking like a hung over undergraduate sneaking his girlfriend into his dorm. They had almost made it when they passed something unexpected: a secret service agent waiting outside a door down the hall from his. As he passed, the agent said, "Hello, Mr. Lyman."

"Eddie? What are you…?" Then he remembered that each nominee was now afforded protection as a potential future president. The protection didn't include him, but it was one more thing to get used to.

"You hiding from something, Mr. Lyman?"

"For a while. What's the congressman doing in there?"

"I'm not on the congressman," he replied, offering no more.

"Okay. Take care Eddie."

They were using their key card in Donna's door when they heard a soft knock and then the door down the hall opened. Eddie whispered, rather loudly on purpose, "The Ostrich has returned."

Josh turned to see Leo McGarry's head emerge from the doorway. "Is his head still in the sand?"

Josh hollered down the hallway, "Don't you have important things to do?"

Leo suppressed a grin with a smirk. "Yes, but apparently not like you do."

Donna laughed aloud and pulled Josh by the arm into her room. Struggling out of his pants and shirt, he slid under the covers and waited just long enough for Donna to climb in beside him so he could wrap his arms around her before he fell into a deep, contented sleep.

-end-


End file.
